"Lapidary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from Garrick through Wilkes. Garrick, no doubt, as Johnson says (ante, v. 391), was, as a companion, 'restrained by some principle,' and had 'some delicacy of feeling.' Nevertheless, in his stories, he was, we may be sure, no more on oath than a man is in lapidary inscriptions (ante, ii. 407). It is possible that he reported Johnson's very words to Hume, and that Hume did not change them in reporting them to Boswell. Whatever they were, they were spoken in 1749 and published in 1791, when Johnson had been dead six years, Garrick twelve years, and Hume ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... the Schools these scraps of Greek lapidary's work seem beautiful to us, in their sober and cheerful acceptance of life and death. We hope, in Oxford, that the study of ancient art, as well as of ancient literature, may soon be made possible. These tangible relics of the past bring ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... The guest, however, had provided himself against such a contingency with a perfect imitation of the coveted jewel. After some show of resistance, he reluctantly acceded to the wishes of his powerful host. The delight of Runjeet was extreme, but of short duration,—the lapidary to whom he gave orders to mount his new acquisition pronouncing it to be merely a bit of crystal. The mortification and rage of the despot were unbounded. He immediately caused the palace of the King ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... social gems with which to crown a successful life; but he was too much of a man to marry a belle as such and be content. He must love her as a woman also, and he had loved what he imagined Stella Wildmere to be. Now he felt, however, like a lapidary who, while gloating over a precious stone, is suddenly shown that it is worthless paste. He may have valued it highly an hour before; now he throws it away in angry disgust. But this simile only in part ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... silver, was also in the Monastery in the days of King Don Alfonso the Wise, but it hath long since been lost, no man knoweth how. Moreover there is in this Sacristy a precious stone of great size, black and sparkling; no lapidary hath yet known its name. The Convent have had an infant Jesus graven thereon, with the emblem of the Passion, that it might be worthily employed. It is thought also that the great cross of crystal which is set so well and ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... modifications. It was no longer regarded as dangerous to speak lightly of hell, or even to suggest that the golden streets and jeweled architecture of the sky might be regarded as symbols of hope rather than exhibits of actual bullion and lapidary construction. Clemens re-read his extravaganza, Captain Stormfields Visit to Heaven, gave it a modernizing touch here and there, and handed it to his publishers, who must have agreed that it was no longer dangerous, for ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of greatly varied habits, Carabi,[1] Cetoniae, Buprestes, Chrysomelae,[2] rival and even surpass the magnificent Dung-beetles in the matter of jewellery. At times we encounter splendours which the imagination of a lapidary would not venture to depict. The Azure Hoplia,[3] the inmate of the osier-beds and elders by the banks of the mountain streams, is a wonderful blue, tenderer and softer to the eye than the azure of the heavens. You ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... the colossal statue by Chantrey which bears the following inscription, pronounced to be beyond comparison "the finest lapidary inscription in the English language." It is from the pen ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... voices. The most of them seemed to know Sir Harry well and greeted him with an odd mixture of respect and familiarity. Their talk was full of mysterious names and expressions, and Taffy thought at first they must be Freemasons. "The Moor point-to-point was a walk-over for the Milkman; Lapidary was scratched, which left it a soft thing, unless Sir Harry fancied a fox-catcher like Nursery Governess, in which case Billy behind the bar would do as much business as he liked at six-to-one." After a ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... geologising together, I'll tell you how I got on at St Albans, where, I suppose you know, I saw cousin William.[14] You know the conglomerates. They are generally hard little stones in a casing of sandstone, lime, or other soft matter. I have known for thirty years, in a lapidary's window in Perth, a large piece of conglomerate, where all is hard and flinty, taking a beautiful polish. After much inquiry I found that this was got in Hertfordshire, where St Albans is. I could ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... violent antipathies against Sedaine? It may be surmised that they arose from aristocratic prejudices of rank. Nor is it impossible but that M. le Comte de Buffon instinctively foresaw, with some repugnance, his approaching confraternity with a man formerly a lapidary; but was not Maury the son of a shoemaker? This very small incident of our literary history seemed doomed to remain in obscurity; chance has, I believe, given me ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... delivery is of immense importance to success. We have spoken of "the born preacher"; even he must cultivate his gifts in order to realise his highest possibilities. We speak sometimes of "diamonds in the rough"; the value of these precious stones increases as the art of the lapidary is carefully exercised upon them. If it be only to prevent the formation of false methods and bad habits of thought and utterance, a preacher should give attention to the study of Homiletics. He may, as the end of all his studies, feel led deliberately to reject much of what ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... kind of devilry at Iberville's large and sensuous mouth, but his eyes were steady and provoking, and while Gering's words went forth pantingly, Iberville's were slow and concise, and chosen with the certainty of a lapidary. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... should not be considered as saying nothing but what is strictly true. Allowance must be made for some degree of exaggerated praise. In lapidary inscriptions a man is ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... malady, and also to a class of sins; and he affirms that when we have chemically got possession of the active principle of gems we shall have not only antidotes but preventatives. While waiting for this chimerical dream to be realized and for our medicine to become the mock of lapidary chemists, he uses precious stones to formulate diagnoses of illnesses produced ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... Use the word "lapidary" in a sentence. MODEL: "When Queen Victoria wanted the Koh-i-noor to be recut, she sent it to a famous ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... cities, but the portion of the inhabitants who escaped built or occupied suburbs at Nola in Campania and at Naples. In the latter city, the Regio Herculanensium, or Quarter of the Herculaneans, an inscription marked on several lapidary monuments, indicates the part devoted to the population ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho |
